I don’t get involved in producing underground events very often, but when Matt Housley of Night Spin Kollective approached me about scheduling a tour date with Shade K and BBK, I couldn’t resist. I’ve been a fan of both artists for close to 2 years now, and the prospect of the two of them making a whole new album and going on tour – I knew it could be good. When Matt told me they were looking to do it around the end of October, I looked at the calendar. Halloween fell on a Monday – immediately something clicked.

I knew that the big Halloween rave massive in Utah, called Get Freaky, would happen the weekend before on the 28th and 29th because that’s how V2 Presents always does it. I also knew that Corbin Schmitke did his monthly called Bass Breakerz on Mondays at The Ice Haus in Murray (Utah), so I suggested we approach him about combining forces and doing it there. I messaged Corbin and he was 100% down with the idea.

Matt and BBK had talked about doing this tour date during the process of them securing a separate earlier date for BBK to perform here in Utah – at Desert Wave, a first-year, outdoor weekend rave/”festival”. At that show, I ended up performing with BBK as his DJ in place of Timmy Teaze, who could not make it. That set turned out to be amazing. We had a natural chemistry and were both on point. I had about 90 minutes beforehand to put a quick set together of the tracks he gave me , and it flowed well.

So back to Halloween, we made all the arrangements with the Ice Haus, booked the artists, and promoted the show lightly at the end of August through September; then did a heavy push all through October. V2 allowed us to flyer their show, which was very nice of them. But in the end, that turned out to be a fruitless endeavor. Not one single person we flyered from Get Freaky showed up. But as we expected, our core crew fam showed up in full force and it turned out to be the best time I’ve had all year.

Nosay started off the night with an all vinyl set of classic breaks, which was phenomenal because Jason has great taste. Matt (IN2GR8), Corbin (Decent) and I (Diggabeatz) did two rotations each of about 45 minutes apiece after that and man did we lay down some funky ass Bass, Breaks and Electro. Then Shade K and BBK took over and brought down the house. I have to say – as a veteran DJ of over 30 years on the decks, I have mad respect for this young DJ’s skills. Not even mentioning his production prowess, which cannot be understated. At this very moment, Shade K has, count them, 7 – yes SEVEN – tracks on the Beatport Breaks Top 100 chart. Aside from what I feel about those charts, this is a big accomplishment, especially considering (whether we like it or not) that those charts are as good as we’ve got to ranking the world’s Breaks producers.

Then there’s BBK. I can’t say enough about this young MC. I had already admired his smooth flows over the Breaks tracks I’d heard him on, but you never know what an MC will be like live. BBK kills it. He’s on point and doesn’t miss a lyric. He was up dancing on top of the subs and the energy was off the scale. On top of that, they’re both very nice people, very humble, and BBK put together the whole tour on his own, while not being greedy about it, working it out with us to be as inexpensive as they could afford.

At the end, I sent everyone home with a quick beatbox over the mic, while BBK freestyled for about 60 seconds, then told them to get the fuck out. GREAT NIGHT. Big love and thank you’s go out to NSK and Bass Breakerz family for making this an unforgettable Halloween!

I had a microKORG for a few years and it was the best synth I ever owned for a variety of reasons but I haven’t seen another hard synth that impressed me enough to venture out of soft synth world. I think KORG has done to me again though, with this one. Just might have to pick one of these up. Only $499

First of all, I called it. I knew the discontinuation of the 1200 couldn’t last long but I didn’t expect a freeking Rolls Royce of a deck. It’s not surprising though, considering two factors – 1, the reintroduction of Technics as a “high end” brand by Panasonic a couple of years ago, and 2, the recent re-surge in vinyl record sales. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog post or two.

So it’s also not surprising that they’re aiming these two new models at true audio enthusiasts (thus the AE?) with lots of money. The SL-1200GAE limited edition of 1200 units (funny but true) will be released first, and is made for serious audiophiles, containing the most upgrades. The SL-1200G will follow a few months later and is geared toward discriminating DJ’s. No word on pricing yet from Panasonic, but expect not to be able to afford either model 😉

I read this article today. Very interesting information and perspective. People singing the death song of vinyl again, but this time not for reasons you would think…

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